Memorial Day began as a way to honor the American Civil War's fallen soldiers. Here's what you need to know about the U.S. holiday.
Memorial Day: Members of the Fitchburg ROTC program walk through a field of some 37,000 U.S. flags planted as part of a Memorial Day Flag Garden by the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Boston Common on May 25, 2024.To some Americans, this holiday also marks a three-day weekend, the beginning of summer, and various traditions. Here are some interesting and surprising facts about Memorial Day.
“The war was over, and Decoration Day had been founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration,” said Dr. David Blight, Sterling Professor of History and of African American Studies at Yale University, in his article” about the Charleston celebration. “The war, they had boldly announced, had been all about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders' republic, and not about state rights, defense of home, nor merely soldiers' valor and sacrifice.
“Charleston claims that. Columbus claims it,” Dr. Adam Domby, Associate Professor of History at Auburn University, tells TIME in a phone call. “But the sentiment remains that the act of decoration annually begins really in the South at grave sites of American soldiers who had died fighting for African American freedom.”According to Dr.
Furthermore, Memorial Day in America is often seen as a celebration—many early iterations of the day included songs, barbecues, and lemonade, according to Dr. Domby—while Armistice Day in many other countries is publicly viewed as quite solemn.Frances Benjamin Johnston/Library of Congress—Getty Imagesto participate in Memorial Day, according to Domby. Instead, Confederate Memorial Day, commemorating the deaths of Confederate soldiers in the U.S., began around the same time.
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